Attended the PSU/OSU last night and came away with some thoughts.
125 - This was one of the best matches I've seen Lightning Luke wrestle since coming to PSU. Bouzakis had both Davis and Nagao in trouble in previous years, scoring 5 against Davis and 10 against Nagao. I thought Luke controlled the tempo and kept himself out of dangerous positions. He was patient waiting for openings and took advantage of the few he saw for a nice win.
133 - Some may disagree with this, but I thought Davino controlled the action and was the aggressor for most of this match. He clearly learned from previous matches how dangerous it is to shoot on Blaze and picked his spots much better than before. Why Davino tried to throw in legs during ride outs is beyond me, as all he had to do was give up the escape and run, and he'd still be undefeated. Blaze will have to make some adjustments if he hopes to win next time they meet. I'm confident he can make that happen, but it will be a toss-up between these two for the rest of the season. 133 is going to be fire in the B1G tournament. Marcus is still a stone cold killer, and I look forward to him competing for a National Championship.
141 - Nobody is beating Mendez this year and, NO, Nate Desmond wasn't keeping things any closer. I feel PSU fans have been underappreciating Mendez all year, with some even claiming that a healthy Nagao would beat him. Unfortunately, we will never know for sure, but I didn't see that ever happening. Mendez is wrestling at another level, and nobody is going to touch him. I would put him as a slight favorite for the Hodge over Mitchell. As part of that award is political, it might come down to who has a season left to win it next year, and that would be MM.
149 - I was really looking forward to SVN vs. Stiles, but I don't see Stiles beating Shayne, so at most this only saved OSU a few points. SVN did what you expected him to do to the backup.
157 - I was really, really looking forward to PJ vs. Cannon! I still believe when he is wrestling aggressively, and with a bit of a mean streak, there is no one in the Nation that can beat PJ at 157, and I was hoping he could prove that last night. I guess we will have to wait for this matchup in the B1G tournament, assuming PJ can get past Taylor next time.
165 - Lots of debate online about Mitchell riding Paddy for so long instead of going for the TF. I can assure you that if the match was in jeopardy at this point, the match strategy by the COACHES would have been different. But with the score what it was, Cael and Co wanted Mitchell to keep working on his top game, as from previous matches, that has clearly been a priority for him to improve on this year. And no, PSU wasn't 'training through OSU' this week, LOL. I can't understand why some fans can't figure out that when very high-level wrestlers meet and compete, 1) both wrestlers will get tired and 2) sometimes styles dictate the final score (and wins vs. losses) more than rankings. When we have close matches against good competition, to say we are training through them is just lazy and pretty arrogant to me. Let's be better than Iowa fans ...
174 - Levi and Kharchla would have been fun. Carson always shows up to scrap, and Levi respects that. I was disappointed that Levi couldn't finish off the pinning combo he had against the backup, as he usually does, but kudos to the kid for fighting off his back.
184 - Fishback seems to get no respect on this board. He has been right there with the top wrestlers in this weight class all season long. Rocco didn't particularly wrestle a smart match on either his feet or on bottom, but he has an incredible amount of heart, and gets some major kudos from me for winning this match. Sometimes things don't go your way, and a true champion will still find a way to win. Rocco found a way, and that's all that counts. I am sure Cael and Co will adjust his neutral offense to not walk into so many shots and will work on him doing a better job of getting hand control and escaping on bottom. I have no concerns about Rocco. He is right there. But the stalling call against Fishback when he was on top was a pretty lame call IMHO.
197 - Josh doing Josh things. Geog is a very tough customer, but Josh was never in trouble. Luke was trying to keep the score close instead of trying to win as other than one good shot, he didn't show much offense. Kudos to Josh for not taking as many crazy shots as he sometimes does. He showed better discipline against a good wrestler and didn't get himself overextended underneath. This is clearly something he is working on that is going to help him on his way to a National Championship!
Hwt - Watching Cole's improvement all season long has been a real treat. Some forget that Feldman beat him 10-3 in last year's dual when Kirk was out. His 4-1 victory is a 10 point swing from that match which is impressive progress. It's gonna be nip and tuck for Cole at the Natty but he can go with anybody in this field so anything is possible. I'm rooting hard for the kid. But I still can't figure out how Cole did not get credit for the TD he clearly got at the end of the third period. I've watched it many times now and am not sure what situation the referee was watching as Cole appeared to have control for much more than reaction time. These kinds of examples are one reason I had how reaction time is being called right now. It is too inconsistent.